Saturday, August 3, 2013

Tony Thompson Art @ The Dev, 41 Devereux St. Utica NY August 2013

Tony, with his awesome sister.

At left Tony's window painting portrait of artist Tim Rand, and the resemblance is nothing short of uncanny.

My favorite of the pieces from the show and I'd even single it out as my favorite painting by Tony yet. One thing about it is the modeling to the head in particular is almost solid where almost all of Tony's figurative pieces have a flatness to them. This one has almost a sculptural feel with a tactile quality to the application of paint that is not typical of his work.

Tony explained to me that the piece was painted between hospital stays for a genetic condition which causes brain bleeds (see the text running up that left side). One side effect is loss of vision and he said he was almost blind when painting this. Now recovered, my call is that we get him an eye patch or a welder's hood to simulate the effect.

Part of Tony's collaboration with sculptor Roberto Luren using Tony's pod bay door installation space at the Macartovin Building just down the block on Genesse St.

I am disappointed to have missed the sight of those two wheeling this up the block from Sculpture Space, where Roberto is doing a residency & the structure was assembled.

Tony with Clinton NY based artist Timothy Rand, and friends.

With artist Jenna North from the Project U group, whom I think would simply sizzle with green hair <3